Actually, technically the old EULA was saying 3D printing was a definite NO NO, but was specific about it.. The new EULA is not only less restrictive in some places, but also holds out the promise of a specific license for 3D printing to come.

The problem with moving the EULA to the check-out process is that DAZ 3D is switching to zips, so if you redownload something you purchased in the past and get a zip, and you never ran the old installer, you haven’t agreed to any EULA.

And the problem with blocking access to old content unless users agree to alter previous agreements remains exactly the same. As I said, I have no problem with the EULA itself. I doubt almost anyone does. It’s the fact that it’s retroactive, and that attempts are being made to force customers to accept it in order to access content purchased under a different agreement that’s the problem. It’s not a question as to which is better. Even with the best of intentions, coercion is still coercion and a terrible precedent.

The issue here could be entirely avoided while still accomplishing everyone’ goals here.

First: Change the retroactive bit of the EULA presented on the downloads page, so it applies only to future downloads/purchases. This way customers aren’t forced to alter previous agreements to gain access to one single piece of content, but if they do choose to use your servers to download another copy of a zip file, they will have agreed to the terms of the new EULA regarding it. There’s a little room for contention here, if someone’s made a purchase just before the change and didn’t have time to download it before the new EULA went into effect, but that could be handled through support offering limited downloads of the installer versions.

Second: Set the current EULA to be agreed to at checkout. Customers would be required to accept the retroactive agreement if they chose to make any new purchases, while still retaining the ability to access their old content, if so desired, without agreeing to a new EULA for anything but the new copies of files.

No more property or old agreements being held hostage, while also no issues with customers gaining access to files without agreeing to an EULA.

What you are missing is first that there is no binding agreement/contract from just the purchase because the EULA is in the installer. So if you bought something but haven’t installed it, you haven’t made that contract yet. Now what fixmypcmike is suggesting is somewhat of an out of the ordinary circumstance that does in fact sometimes happen.

So for example, lets say 4 years ago you bought a really cool looking prop. You downloaded it but then something came up that distracted you for several weeks and so you never installed the new prop. When you finally get back to it you’ve lost interest in what you were planning on doing with it so rather then installing it you just put it wherever you store the installers you download. 4 years go by and it’s today, you’re looking thru the Daz site for something to finish off the scene you’ve been working on and you come across this old prop. It’s exactly what you need to complete your scene. You remember that you bought it previously and so you go to find it in your runtime but it’s not there. Then you remember you never installed it. So you look for it in your stored installers and can’t find it there either because two years ago you were reorganizing where you store your installers and accidentally deleted that file without realizing it. You’re puzzled why it’s not there but you’re certain you bought it which you confirm by checking your order history. So you shrug your shoulders and just assume that you only thought you download it and you reset the download. Except now all the installers have been changed to zips and since the zips don’t have a way of forcing you to agree to an EULA you end up installing this prop without ever once having agreed to an EULA.

I didn’t miss anything. The now-bolded bit was there to address this exact concern.

No you are missing things, in your bolded part you suggest the change should only apply to new purchases but the change needs to be made for the older purchase even more since the older purchases run off an agreement that didn’t address the 3D printer issue.

No, read it again.

I suggested that users should be presented a non-retroactive EULA which would apply to any any new purchases or downloads [highlighted the relevant part to point it out], so they’re not being made to alter agreements on all old content just because they decide to download one piece of it.

After that I suggested if DAZ wants to keep the retroactive bit, they should simply make agreeing to the EULA as-is a condition for making new purchases, in addition to the previously suggested change.

So you would rather go back to the old, more restrictive EULA. So click to accept the new one, and then only download installers, don’t use the DIM to download any of the new zips. Then, when you run the installers you can click to accept the older EULA, the MORE restrictive one. Kevin has said if people really want to be governed by the older EULA, that is fair enough. You want be forced to use any of the new less restrictive terms.

I really do wonder how many people actually read the old EULA before they clicked to accept it.

The problem is that they don’t want to click the new EULA that is blocking access to the downloads of the old installers. They believe that Daz is trying to trick them into something they don’t want to do. Near as I can tell all of the hysteria came from the wording that suggests they may have to delete all their old products if they don’t agree to this new EULA. As I understand it that has been changed but the hysteria persists because some have claimed that they never clicked the new EULA but now have access to their downloads back. So at least in the case of some people it seems like they’re being restricted in ways that others are not.

I could be wrong but that’s what I get out of what people have been saying.

That’s not what’s going on at all. The problem is DAZ won’t allow access to any old downloads unless customers alter previous agreements relating to all of them. The actual content of the new EULA [besides the retroactive bit] is irrelevant to the issue.

The change isn’t really a change it’s an addendum to address an issue that didn’t exist at the time the original agreement was made. Since there are scenarios where no agreement has been made because someone may not have installed something they bought in the past it’s not unreasonable for daz to try to correct the situation by forcing people to a blanket EULA. In order for it to be considered illegal in court Daz would have to be trying to change something they allowed in the previous agreement like if they said you could sell your renders in the intial EULA and then changed it to you can’t sell your renders in the new one. That then would be illegal. To address 3D printing which didn’t exist on the open market when the old agreement was drafted is not illegal and since nobody bought those older items with the expectation to be able to use them on a 3D printer with absolutely no restriction then Daz isn’t doing something that’s unfair to the customer.

An addendum is a change. True, adding one is not illegal.

Refusing to allow access to any content unless users change their previous agreements regarding all content is definitely questionable. It doesn’t matter whether the new agreement is nicer or not.

As chohole pointed out, the old EULA covered 3D printing by only allowing 2D images.

Because I feel like this is bouncing off of deaf ears by now, I’d like to reiterate that I have no problem with the terms of the EULA itself. Saying “but it’s better” is completely missing the issue.

So you would rather go back to the old, more restrictive EULA. So click to accept the new one, and then only download installers, don’t use the DIM to download any of the new zips. Then, when you run the installers you can click to accept the older EULA, the MORE restrictive one. Kevin has said if people really want to be governed by the older EULA, that is fair enough. You want be forced to use any of the new less restrictive terms.

I really do wonder how many people actually read the old EULA before they clicked to accept it.

The problem is that they don’t want to click the new EULA that is blocking access to the downloads of the old installers. They believe that Daz is trying to trick them into something they don’t want to do. Near as I can tell all of the hysteria came from the wording that suggests they may have to delete all their old products if they don’t agree to this new EULA. As I understand it that has been changed but the hysteria persists because some have claimed that they never clicked the new EULA but now have access to their downloads back. So at least in the case of some people it seems like they’re being restricted in ways that others are not.

I could be wrong but that’s what I get out of what people have been saying.

That’s not what’s going on at all. The problem is DAZ won’t allow access to any old downloads unless customers alter previous agreements relating to all of them. The actual content of the new EULA [besides the retroactive bit] is irrelevant to the issue.

The change isn’t really a change it’s an addendum to address an issue that didn’t exist at the time the original agreement was made. Since there are scenarios where no agreement has been made because someone may not have installed something they bought in the past it’s not unreasonable for daz to try to correct the situation by forcing people to a blanket EULA. In order for it to be considered illegal in court Daz would have to be trying to change something they allowed in the previous agreement like if they said you could sell your renders in the intial EULA and then changed it to you can’t sell your renders in the new one. That then would be illegal. To address 3D printing which didn’t exist on the open market when the old agreement was drafted is not illegal and since nobody bought those older items with the expectation to be able to use them on a 3D printer with absolutely no restriction then Daz isn’t doing something that’s unfair to the customer.

An addendum is a change. True, adding one is not illegal.

Refusing to allow access to any content unless users change their previous agreements regarding all content is definitely questionable. It doesn’t matter whether the new agreement is nicer or not.

As chohole pointed out, the old EULA covered 3D printing by only allowing 2D images.

Because I feel like this is bouncing off of deaf ears by now, I’d like to reiterate that I have no problem with the terms of the EULA itself. Saying “but it’s better” is completely missing the issue.

Adding a change is not illegal if addressing something that could not have possibly been addressed when the original agreement was drawn up. For example a few years back the consumer protection act was put into law to prevent credit card companies from taking advantage of consumers. Immediately afterwards the credit card companies sent out changes to their agreements with customers to incorporate these changes since obviously they didn’t have a crystal ball to peer into the future and anticipate these changes in the law. Now had there been no new law and they just decided they were going to change things arbitrarily that then would be the illegal move.

It’s possible to interpret the old EULA as covering something because it doesn’t specifically mention it and therefore one could extrapolate that it’s not allowed because nothing says it’s allowed but another could also extrapolate that it’s not forbidden because it’s not specifically forbidden. Contracts typically try to prevent such grey areas which is why they often end up looking like a bunch of confusing legalese but ultimately it’s best for everyone involved if a contract spells out specifically what is and isn’t allowed rather then to trust what can be infered by an omission of something.

It’s possible to interpret the old EULA as covering something because it doesn’t specifically mention it and therefore one could extrapolate that it’s not allowed because nothing says it’s allowed but another could also extrapolate that it’s not forbidden because it’s not specifically forbidden. Contracts typically try to prevent such grey areas which is why they often end up looking like a bunch of confusing legalese but ultimately it’s best for everyone involved if a contract spells out specifically what is and isn’t allowed rather then to trust what can be infered by an omission of something.

The old EULA states “All other rights with respect to the 3-D Model(s) and their use are reserved to DAZ3D (and its licensors).”
I believe that makes explicit that any use not covered is forbidden.

..so basically, let’s say I want to create a physical 3D figure “print” of my namesake based on the work I’ve done using Daz figure and clothing meshes along with he MAT textures for use as a personal mini figure in an RPG game, I would need a special licence form Daz even though it would just be for my own personal use?

As long as you are not distributing the original meshes or the original meshes can’t be extracted or reverse engineered from what you are distributing. Games create a unique scenario though in that it is near impossible to prevent some risk to the copyrighted material and so to that end game developers have special licensing which usually is substantially more expensive to help offset the potential loss the inherent risk may cause.

You say though it would only be for your use so in the game it might mean you could only implement your unique character in a way that is visible to you and that other participants in the would see the default character. Now if by RPG you mean the older real world kind like Dungeons & Dragons, you could have your physical representation of your character using Daz meshes because the other players in the game couldn’t extract the mesh or reverse engineer it from just seeing it. You would have to give them a copy of your physical representation to take home with them, that then would be illegal but then it also would no longer be just for your personal use.

...actually this was in reference to 3D printing as it opens the door for P&P RPG players to have custom figures that are exact representations of their characters rather than having to “approximate” using an “off the shelf miniature” bought at the local gaming store.

I don’t do MMOs as I have slow to spotty connectivity and 3D CG is already enough of a time sink for me (albeit a more productive one).

Okay then, well I don’t see where it’s a problem for you to make your own figures for yourself but you might be in violation if you made figures for other people and gave them away or sold them. Also there could be an issue if you had to use a third party for the actual printing and you supplied them with the meshes. If you had your own printer though and made a customer figure to match the character of an RPG and only you had that figure then the way I read the 3D printing portion of the EULA there should be absolutely no problem.

...well considering I am not of the economic strata to afford my own high quality 3D printer to do a detailed 25mm figure, I would need to send the mesh to a third party service. That’s a real bugger especially since I would be paying them with my own hard earned money to do a one time 3D print (that I would have to detail myself) of an original character of my own design. If they went and produced additional copies for retail afterwards, then Daz3D’s (as well as my own because I have the copyright to the character likeness) legal argument should be with them not me.

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